33. Thirty-Two
The whiskey burned like formaldehyde going down, but I couldn’t stop drinking. I couldn’t risk being sober enough to process what I’d awakened inside myself. The hotel room felt too small, suffocating, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave, even to go to the balcony. Not when Xander’s designer dress was still stained with Roche’s blood. Not when the urge to own and possess still burned in my veins.
Xander moved around the room, throwing our things into suitcases while I kept my vigil by the window. Xavier had gone out an hour ago to help Nickolai coordinate the cleanup with Lucky Losers. I pretended not to notice the concerned glances he'd thrown at me on the way out, the way he'd bowed his head and whispered that they should keep a close eye on me.
And God help me, they were. Xander wouldn't stop looking at me with those puppy dog eyes, that pinched brow, those pursed lips that I ached to bite, to claim. To own.
Xander took a step in my direction, reached for me.
I flinched away. “Don’t.” The word came out rougher than I intended, so I knocked back another drink, relishing the burn. “Stay away from me.”
“Ash…”
He reached for me again, but this time I caught him by the wrist. My grip on him was too tight, bruising, but he didn’t even try to pull away. He just watched me with those sad eyes, seeing straight through me.
“You’re shaking,” he said softly. Too softly.
I was. My whole body trembled with the effort of maintaining control, of not letting the possessive beast inside me surface to take what it wanted.
“Let me help,” Xander whispered. “Let me take care of you for once.”
He took another careful step closer, approaching like I was a wild, wounded animal. Dammit, maybe that’s exactly what I fucking was.
I shook my head. “I can’t. Not tonight. Not when I want… When I…” My throat was suddenly raw, so I lifted my glass only to find it empty. Dammit all.
Xander’s slender fingers closed around the empty glass while I was still staring at it and he took it from me, placing it on the dresser. “Tell me what you need. Honestly.”
“Honestly?” I let out a long, slow breath. It didn’t help. “I need to own you completely. To keep you perfect and still forever. To preserve every inch of you as you are right now. I let myself sink too deep, Xander. Standing there, in Roche’s sanctuary with all those butterflies… But it wasn’t him I saw. All I saw was my father. I…became him tonight. And now I don’t know how the fuck to come back from it.”
“Bullshit.” Xander’s voice was cutting. “That’s not what you want at all.”
“You have no fucking clue what I want.” The words came out as a growl.
“The hell I don’t.” He stepped closer. “The Ash Valentine I know doesn’t want me frozen in time like some pretty butterfly. He wants me to grow. To evolve. To become stronger and deadlier every single day.”
Their hands found my face, soft and warm against my cold skin. “You spend every training session pushing me past my limits. Making me better than I was the day before. You own my progress, my future. That's how you want to possess me, to make me better . Not by preserving me in amber, but by honing me into the beautiful weapon you know I’m meant to be.”
The truth in his words hit hard. Even at my darkest, I had never wanted to put out the fire in him. He was right. My possessive need had always been about nurturing him, molding him into something beautiful and lethal.
“You are not your father,” Xander said firmly. “And you’re not Roche. You are Ashley fucking Valentine, and you’re mine .”
Something in my chest fractured with his words. My hands found his throat, thumb dragging lightly over his pulse just to feel the steady beat of life beneath his skin. “Am I?”
“Yes,” Xander said with conviction. “Mine.” He covered my hands with his own, pressing them harder against his throat, trusting me completely. “Now, let me take care of what belongs to me.”
Xander stepped backward, pulling me with him toward the bathroom. Once we were inside, I let my hands drop limply to my sides. He closed the door and locked it before turning on the shower. Steam curled around us, and it was enough that some of the ice in my veins had begun to melt. Bloodstained silk whispered against my fingers as they guided my hands to the zipper of their dress.
“Help me wash it away,” he murmured, breath ghosting over my lips. “All of it. The blood. The chemicals. The ghosts of what we did here in Paris, and the ones that haunt you from before. Let this be a baptism. Let’s start over everything that isn’t us.”
My fingers trembled as I drew the zipper down, but I felt detached, like someone else was controlling my body. Numbly, I registered that I was probably disassociating. It wouldn’t surprise me if we all walked away from this mission with a little PTSD. The dress pooled at his feet, leaving him in white lace that somehow managed to look deadly instead of delicate.
He reached for my shirt buttons next, carefully undoing them.
The steam was so thick in the bathroom I could barely see when he pushed my shirt over my shoulders and let it fall to the floor with his dress. My eyes were fixed on the bruises covering his chest, neck, and thighs. The bruises I’d put there. The bruises that made him mine.
Xander lifted my hand and forced me to trace one of the darker marks. “These will fade,” he promised. “And when they do, you’ll mark me again. And again. And again. Every day for the rest of our lives, Ash. Forever.”
I met his eyes. Forever seemed like such a foreign concept. What the hell lasted forever? When I was young, I used to think I would, but now… Now forever had a finite timeline. I had thirty, maybe forty, good years left in me. That should’ve scared the hell out of me. Instead, all I could think of was how I wanted to spend every one of them with Xander.
Xander eased my belt open carefully, letting the leather slither free before moving to the zipper. My cock was already half hard despite everything, responding to their nearness even as my mind struggled. But there was nothing sexual in his touch as they helped me out of my clothes. This was about comfort. About trust.
His remaining clothes came off, revealing pale skin marred my bruises, evidence of our savage love. My teeth marks on his shoulder. My fingerprints on his hips. Seeing them again stirred something possessive and dark in my chest, but he quieted it with a gentle touch and a soft kiss.
“Let me take care of you,” he murmured again, guiding me into the shower.
The first blast of water hit like absolution, hot enough to punch the air from my lungs. Steam rose around us in thick clouds as Xander positioned me under the spray. He pressed in close, his skin slick against mine, and I felt his hard cock brush against my thigh. Slow, soft kisses trailed up my collarbone to my neck, each one more real than the last.
“Look at me,” he ordered quietly, pressing a washcloth into my hands. “Help me clean off.”
My fingers traced crimson trails down his chest where Roche’s blood had soaked through his dress. The water ran pink around our feet as I scrubbed each spot with methodical care. Every swipe of the cloth revealed more of his skin, more of him, more of my marks on him. My claim was written in purple and blue across perfect, pale skin.
“Just focus on me,” he murmured. “On us. Nothing else exists right now but that.”
He was right. The world beyond the shower felt distant, unreal. Here, there was only the steady beat of water against the tile floor, the familiar scent of his expensive floral soap, the warmth of his skin under my hands. Each touch anchored me more in the present, pulling me back from the edge of memories I didn’t want to face.
“You’re still shaking.” Xander caught my hands and pressed in closer. “Let me?”
I swallowed and nodded.
Xander reached for the shampoo. His fingers worked it through my hair, nails scraping lightly against my scalp in a way that made my breath catch. The simple intimacy of it felt…good. Better than good. There wasn’t a word to describe just how amazing it felt.
“You know what I see when I look at you?” Xander tilted my head back to rinse my hair in the water. “I see someone who puts so much effort into protecting others that he forgets to protect himself sometimes. Someone who carries weight he doesn’t need to carry alone anymore.”
His words hit me with devastating accuracy, forcing their way past walls I hadn’t even realized I had up. My defenses crumbled under his steady touch and those soft, knowing eyes.
“I couldn’t save him,” I admitted finally, the confession torn from somewhere deep in my chest. “My father. I knew what he was doing to those girls, but I couldn’t… I wasn’t strong enough to stop him. So I swore to myself I’d never be that weak again. I learned to hunt monsters like him, threw everything I had into becoming what I wish I could’ve been then. But tonight…”
“Tonight you had to become a monster to stop one,” Xander finished when I couldn’t continue. “But that’s not who you are. It’s just a role you played. Like all the roles we play to survive.”
His hands never stopped moving, washing away more than just the physical evidence of what we’d done. Each touch felt like forgiveness, like understanding.
“I choose you,” he said firmly. “Every version of you. The protector and the predator. The agent and the avenger. All of it, because that’s what love means for people like us.”
Water ran down his face like tears, but his eyes were clear and certain when they met mine. In that moment, I finally understood what he’d been trying to tell me. Love wasn’t about being worthy. It was about being chosen, broken pieces and all.
My hands found his hips, thumbs pressing into the marks I’d left there earlier. Something shifted in the air between us as Xander arched his back slightly, water running in thick rivulets down the elegant curve of his throat.
“Please,” he breathed. “I want you. I need to know you’re still mine.”
The raw need in his voice broke something in me. I spun him to face the wall, pressing against his back to cage him in with my body. My lips found the skin over his pulse, tasting water and soap and the salt of his skin. Every heartbeat against my tongue was proof he was alive, whole, perfect. His hands braced against the tile as I marked him again, adding fresh bruises to the ones already beginning to fade.
“I’ll always be yours,” I growled against his throat. “Even when I lose myself, I will always find my way back to you.”
My cock throbbed against his ass as he ground back against me. One of his hands reached back to tangle in my hair, holding me against his neck as I sucked another mark in his skin.
“Now, please,” he whined. “Need you now.”
I pressed him harder against the wall, the contrast of his pale skin against the dark marble a thing of beauty. Everything about him was a study in beautiful contradiction, strength and submission, danger and grace.
“Wait here,” I ordered, reluctantly pulling away. I stepped out of the shower just long enough to grab the lube from my toiletry kit. Water ran down my body, pooling on the floor, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about the mess. Not when Xander was waiting for me, pressed against the tile exactly where I’d left him.
I uncapped the bottle as I stepped back under the spray. Xander let out a soft gasp as I worked the first finger inside him, marveling at how hot and tight his body always was.
“More,” he demanded, pushing back against my hand. “I need more.”
“Patience, brat.” I bit his shoulder in warning as I added a second finger.
By the time I had three fingers inside him, he was trembling. Little broken sounds escaped his lips as he rocked back, fucking himself on my fingers desperately.
“Please,” he pleaded. “Now, Daddy?”
I withdrew my fingers and quickly slicked up my cock, lining it up with his entrance. “Now,” I agreed.
The first push inside had us both groaning in unison. He yielded to me completely, accepting every inch of me until I was buried to the hilt in the heat of his body.
I withdrew almost completely before pushing in with a single thrust punctuated by, “Mine.” The word wasn’t possessive anymore. It was a promise. A vow. “Forever, Xander.”
“Yes!” He gasped, hands scrabbling for purchase on the wet tile. Water ran down his spine in streams that I chased with my tongue. “Show me. Make sure I remember it all the way back to Ohio.”
I set a brutal pace, each thrust driving us both higher. My hands gripped his hips hard enough to leave fresh bruises as I held him exactly where I wanted him. Where he needed to be. The shower couldn’t muffle the sounds he made as I claimed him. He let out little broken whimpers that made my blood hot and my cock swell.
Xander’s hand went to his cock, pumping in time with my thrusts. The sight of him pleasuring himself while I owned him so completely pushed me over the edge. This was what I really wanted. Not to preserve him in eternal stillness, but to watch him come apart in my arms again and again, and to be there to put him back together again when it was over.
“That’s it, baby,” I rasped as his movements grew frantic. “Show me who you belong to.”
He shattered with a broken cry, painting the tile wall with his cum until the water washed it away. The rhythmic clenching of his body sent aftershocks of pleasure through my body.
We stayed like that for a long moment afterward, both trembling in the aftermath. My forehead pressed between his shoulder blades as our breathing slowly steadied. The darkness that had haunted me felt distant now, banished by Xander’s light.
A sharp knock on the bathroom door made us both jump.
“If you two are done with your emotional breakthrough or whatever,” Xavier called through the door, “some of us would like to use the bathroom. Misha’s been doing the pee dance out here for ten fucking minutes!”
“I have not,” Misha protested in the background.
I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up out of my chest, surprising even myself. It felt good. Real. Like coming back to life after being underwater for too long.
“Five more minutes,” Xander called back as I withdrew from his body.
“I swear to God if you two use up all the hot water…”
“Fine, fine.” Xander rolled his eyes.
We made quick work of cleaning up, but when we got out, we realized we’d forgotten to bring in more clothes.
Xander clutched his towel with one hand and cracked the door, peering out. “X, could you…”
“Already on it.” Xavier’s voice carried from the other end of the suite. “Though I should make you walk out here into the cold naked as punishment for traumatizing me. Twice.”
“Like you haven’t seen it before,” Xander scoffed. “We shared a womb.”
“And I’ve been trying to forget about it ever since,” Xavier muttered, digging through our suitcases.
Misha let out a frustrated whine. “Can we please save the banter for after I pee?”
Xavier appeared, shoving an armful of clothes at us, and we quickly dressed.
Misha practically knocked us over in his rush to get to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. A relieved sigh from the other side of the door made Xander snort with laughter.
“I spoke with Nikolai,” Xavier said. He was already busy packing up his laptop. “All of Misha’s paperwork is in order and ready to go.”
“You’re sure the documents are solid?” I asked.
“Better than solid,” Xavier promised, zipping up the laptop bag. “Nikolai’s the best forger in France. Michael Laskin already has a full paper trail stretching back nineteen years. School records, vaccinations, medical history… Everything he needs to pass scrutiny.”
“Michael?” Xander asked just as the bathroom door opened.
“It was my grandfather’s name,” Misha volunteered. He looked smaller somehow in his off-brand clothes, but he’d refused to wear anything except oversized hoodies and worn jeans. After what he’d been through, I couldn’t blame him.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” I asked Misha. “You don’t have to leave France. I know it’s home.”
“No,” Misha said firmly. “There’s nothing for me here and… I want to go with you. The vory, Nikolai made it clear it’s not safe for someone like me. That he could only protect me so much.”
“You’ll be welcome with us,” Xander declared. “Hell, Uncle Nikita’s bisexual and he runs the vory in Columbus. We’ve got every color of the rainbow now.”
“We’re basically the literal alphabet mafia at this point,” Xavier confirmed.
Some of the tension eased from Misha’s shoulders as Xander and Xavier started talking excitedly about the family waiting for him in Ohio. A family that would see him for exactly who he was rather than who they wanted him to be.
“You’ll be safe with the Laskins,” I promised. “They protect their own.”
“And now,” Xander said, throwing an arm around Misha’s shoulders, “you’re one of us.”
Misha nodded. “When do we leave?”
“Flight leaves in about six hours,” Xavier confirmed. “We have time to grab dinner and maybe see the Eiffel tower before we go, but by this time tomorrow, you’ll be home.”
Home. The word seemed to catch Misha off guard, making his eyes wet. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “All of you. For everything.”
Xander pulled Misha into a careful hug. “Welcome to the family. Hope you’re ready for the chaos.”